IM...Red Carpet Detour from the Socio-Digital Divide

There is an aspect of the feverish procession to IM that troubles me. Were it accompanied by commensurate outreach to disadvantaged users, it might be more laudable. Where it coexists with policies that needlessly constrain those who lack access to basic technology, it signals a woeful retreat from our fundamental institutional charge to decry social inequity and ameliorate its effects. Shame on libraries that fawn on the privileged and exacerbate the digital divide!

Resources allocated to court the digitally privileged are more responsibly spent in empowering the digitally impoverished. Energy expended to lure the immature into ever more superficial exchange is more productively (and honorably) spent in dismantling the obstacles (some imposed by libraries themselves) that thwart engagement on the part of masses that are already seeking us out, and that, unlike the IM-intoxicated, lack viable alternatives.
instant messaging
social responsibility
library 2.0

Call it CHAT

Here's an analogy: IM is to quality reference as Koolaid is to fruit punch. Quality reference transactions depend upon resources and engagement. IM communication is often on-the-fly and tangential to other activity. A multitasking customer is not a suitable actor for the level of engagement required for quality reference service. Similarly, the absence of broadly recognized, accessible in-place resources and practiced scenarios diminishes the likelihood of quality instant- message-based reference service.

IM Nation under a Ruse

Not surprising that IM use follows generational lines, according to the Pew Report, with Trailing Baby Boomers among those who use IM least. Perhaps the reason has something to do with the innate peculiarity of IM communication. Highly exposed, yet oddly disembodied, it can be urgent, intimate, formulaic, disingenuous in configurations not attainable by traditional communication.

Reliance on IM for anything more than the most cursory communication poses challenges for libraries. It may be handy and well appreciated for navigational guidance and light information regarding programs and services, but for interaction with customers regarding reference questions, there are core issues of privacy to consider. Online there is always the prospect of third party presence to information transactions, and policies of chat record deletion lose efficacy.

Libraries soliciting IM interaction with the public should do so with gravity, caution and clearly worded caveats in order to avoid misleading those driven more strongly by curiosity than circumspection.